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Food

Everyone Wants to Get Drunk Off This Avocado Beer

Bush Shack Brewery in Yallingup in Western Australia brewed an avocado-based beer for an Avocado Festival at the Araluen Botanical Park in Perth last month, and the crowd went wild.
Photo via Flickr user sweetonveg

Avocados have enjoyed a seemingly endless run up the ranks of fruit popularity. Far removed from the days when avocado was primarily thought of merely in association with guacamole and California rolls, the green goodness is verifiably everywhere. The Internet has nursed an obsession with avocado toast and avocado eggs that could be considered unhealthy—if avocadoes weren't so nutritious. Avocados were even the top food searched on Pinterest this year for the second year running, with avocado egg bakes and avocado hummus taking top honors.

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That said, all that avocado-eating has come with some awful side effects. Violent gangs in Mexico have been extorting avocado farmers, leading to armed conflict between avocado-growers and gangs. Growing avocados can also be a serious water burden to drought-stricken regions—growing one pound of the fruits requires nearly 75 gallons of water, about six times the amount of water it takes to grow a pound of oranges.

READ: Avocados Are About to Get Way More Expensive

But none of this has slowed demand. And now, one Australian brewer has started brewing an avocado beer, and people are clamoring for him to make more. Daniel Wind of Bush Shack Brewery in Yallingup in Western Australia brewed the avocado beer for an Avocado Festival at the Araluen Botanical Park in Perth last month.

"They said, 'if you're going to come along, how about you have a go at making avocado beer?'—and I went, 'Well, why not,'" Wind told Mashable Australia.

Photo via Flickr user Wagner T. Cassimiro

Photo via Flickr user Wagner T. Cassimiro

Wind made a lager using 66 pounds of avocados, and Wind says that though the beer doesn't taste strongly avocad-ish, it does have an added bitterness and a creamy finish.

"We were quite amazed at the number of people, [who] after tasting it, were coming back and asking for it," Wind told Mashable.

RECIPE: Grilled Avocado with Ponzu Sauce

Unfortunately, the batch was a one-time affair, and customers who have come back clamoring for bottles of the avocado beer have been left disappointed.

This isn't the first time someone has brewed avocado beer. Los Angeles's Angel City Brewery served up an Avocado Ale in the style of a kolsch at its avocado festival back in 2013, and home brewers have been kicking the idea around for some time. Island Brewing Company in Santa Barbara, California, brews an Avocado Honey Ale, made with honey from bees that have fed on avocado plants.

Anyone who has watched the craft beer explosion grow over the last decade-plus—or, really, anyone who has been to a craft beer bar recently—knows that with the variety of odd, gross, and precious ingredients and flavors that grace beer bottles and labels, it can feel like we've reached peak craft beer. In that regard, maybe beer and avocados are meant for one another. After all, some McDonald's locations now serve avocado toast.